Tamper-indicating or tamper-evident packaging for food products, beverages, and the like, desirably acts to assure consumers of the purity and freshness of such products. Typically, such packaging arrangements are configured to provide clearly visually discernible evidence that a package or container has been partially or completely opened.
One such tamper-evident arrangement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,828, to Wilde et al. This patent discloses a tamper-indicating plastic closure particularly suited for use with bottles or like containers. The closure disclosed in this patent has proven to be quite commercially successful, since it has been configured for highly efficient and reliable use with conventionally configured containers having a threaded neck, and an annular, flange-like locking ring.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,112, to McBride, discloses a modified form of the above-discussed tamper-indicating closure. In particular, this patent discloses a closure including a pilfer band having a plurality of circumferentially spaced flexible projections, with the pilfer band further including a plurality of interference beads respectively associated with the flexible projections. The closure can be configured to provide two modes of tamper-indication. In a first mode of operation, the flexible projections interferingly engage the associated container, thereby at least partially detaching the pilfer band from the closure skirt. In a second mode, each flexible projection is engageable with a respective one of the interference beads during removal from an associated container thereby reducing the effective inside diameter of the pilfer band, and fracturing the frangible connection between the pilfer band and the closure skirt for providing evidence of partial or complete closure removal.
The present invention is directed to a tamper-indicating closure of the above type, with improvements which enhance tamper-resistance, and facilitate high-speed manufacture.